


Last Rites

by Sophia_Prester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s07e01 Meet the New Boss, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Prester/pseuds/Sophia_Prester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel made a promise to Dean after returning the souls to Purgatory, but actually <i>keeping</i> that promise will be far more complicated than he ever could have imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Rites

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for the SPN Reversebang challenge to go with this drawing by serenada: [Trinity](http://serenada-art.livejournal.com/26811.html).

Castiel made a promise.

He made it, he meant it, and he reaffirmed it.

He _would_ redeem himself.

"One thing at a time," Dean told him, and although he was gruff and disbelieving, the steadying hand on Castiel's arm was, in its own way, a promise.

Castiel knew he had much to do, if he were to make up for all he had done, but--

\--but in the end there was barely time to do _one_ thing.

He pushed Dean and Bobby away as hard as he could.

Vessel and grace convulsed as he fought to hold the Leviathans back for just one more second. It wasn't enough. It was all he could do to tell Dean and Bobby what was happening. He had to tell them to get out of there, to get far away...

"I can't fight them!" His grace shuddered and warped as thousands of teeth dug in.

Dean didn't run. He just stood there and watched, eyes wide, as Castiel failed one last time.

Why were Dean and Bobby just standing there? They had to run, they had to get out, they had to let him have this one last, futile thing.

Castiel prayed for strength ( _please let there be someone to hear, please..._ ) and offered up the last portion of his grace as a barrier.

It barely slowed the Leviathans down.

His grace flew apart and shriveled like paper in a fire. Fire and falling apart and there was barely enough strength and sense for one last word:

" _Run!_ "

The Leviathans ripped through the ashes of his grace--ripped through _him_ \--to blaze a path into the world.

He didn't even get to see if Dean and Bobby had the time or wits to obey the one last thing he had commanded them--

(But it wasn't a command. It couldn't have been. He had no right. Not anymore. Maybe it was a prayer. A prayer to no one. No one to pray to.)

\--before the last shreds of everything scattered into an infinity of pain.

The fires of hell had not burned so hot or so long when he had fought his way through them to grab desperately at a struggling, fallen soul.

(That was the moment that changed everything. If only he had known... If only... Now there was no one left who could reach through this fire to pull him out, to raise him from perdition. No one... Was there truly no one?)

He had not been so undone when he had been dragged back into Heaven for reeducation.

("You will remember your duty and your purpose, and we will make sure you will never forget again what you are and what you _forever_ will be." Zachariah had spoken so kindly as he twisted Castiel's wings one by one by one, dislocating them within their sockets. It was all so simple, then. Everything was so much simpler. He would obey. He was a soldier. He would obey.)

Raphael and Lucifer had both obliterated him so quickly there was no time to understand it had happened. One moment, life. The next, oblivion.

(Those deaths had _meant_ something, though. Those deaths had been victories. But this time, and this death... this death...)

Taking in and then releasing the souls from Purgatory had been nothing like this. Nothing at all like this.

(He had asked for guidance, he had, and there was nothing but silence. No one to respond. He was alone. Forsaken. Why have you...)

The pain surged and crashed and flooded every last inch of consciousness until there was no more room for memory, no more room for thought, only tearing and fire and forever and a scream that would not end and would not end and would not be answered--

( _...forsaken... why have you..._ )

\--and was abruptly cut short. The pain vanished in the same instant Castiel fell to his hands and knees with a quiet and undignified gasp of surprise.

It took him a moment to realize that he no longer hurt. All he felt was a mild and distant discomfort that barely qualified as 'unpleasant.' He was dizzy from the abrupt transition, but he'd come to no worse harm from that. Damp soaked through the cloth of his trouser legs and he was dimly aware of the cool, wet prickle of neatly trimmed grass against his palms, but it was hardly bothersome. It was all detached in some manner, and he registered these things more as fact than actual sensation.

Awareness also brought with it with a rapid-fire series of thoughts:

 _What happened to Dean?_

I didn't have a chance to keep...

What happened to...

I didn't have a chance...

What happened...

I didn't...

The thoughts circled around each other faster and faster until Castiel shut them down as ruthlessly as he once shut down anything resembling doubt.

Right now, he told himself firmly, other things needed his full attention.

A moment ago, the Leviathans had torn him apart down to the last particle of grace.

And now he was here, whatever was meant by 'here.'

He knew at once it was not Heaven. The absence of both pain and a gloating Crowley told him it was (most likely) not Hell.

It could have been Earth.

Did that mean he had escaped?

As far as Castiel could tell, he was alone in his head and alone in this place. Even though it seemed removed, he knew the warmth on his back was nothing like hellfire. Sunlight? His grace and wings were once again intact if strangely... remote. The dizziness abated, and he instinctively sent a flicker of thought towards his wings. All six of them flexed easily enough, air crisp and chill against immaterial feathers, but it was not what he had hoped for. His wings were there, but not there enough to support him in flight.

In the back of his mind, he imagined a familiar voice saying "Well, _that_ sucks."

"Agreed," he muttered, shoving down a stray flicker of worry. Worrying wouldn't do anything to help Dean, Sam, and Bobby. If he didn't have full use of his wings, he would simply have to conduct surveillance by other means and hope he didn't run into any challenges.

He stood up, brushing dirt and grass clippings from his knees. He paused for a moment, wondering what about that particular action didn't seem right. Then he filed that thought away for later and took stock of his immediate surroundings.

A quick scan of the vicinity established several facts right away:

It was a grassy place with low hills and scattered trees. A thicker wood bordered it to one side. Despite the lack of formal plantings, the place was clearly a cultivated setting--the grounds of an estate, perhaps. But where?

Not just where, but _when?_ From all appearances, he had jumped not just in space but in time as well. The unevenly mixed coloration of the leaves and the cool ambient temperature established the season as early fall, while the position of the sun relative to the horizon put the time of day as late afternoon, nearly evening. It could have been early morning, but the warmth of the ground relative to the air suggested otherwise. There were a few striated clouds, low to the horizon near the sun, and there was still sufficient sunlight to counter the temperature of the breeze.

It was pleasant, he noted dully, but he felt no pleasure.

A multitude of frantic questions rumbled through his brain again, and behind those questions, there was a deeper rumble he had no desire to examine just then.

Whatever it was, he told himself it wasn't important right now. He had figure out where he was and how to get back to Dean and the others. He had a promise to keep.

Castiel set off uphill in search of a better vantage point, and hoped nothing would attack him in his current, weakened state.

 _The way our luck goes, you should probably count on it,_ he told himself, but it sounded less like himself and more like the person he wished was there.

Castiel walked for what felt like a mile before he finally saw signs of habitation beyond trimmed grass and groves that were too tidy to be naturally occurring.

A lake stretched out along the hillside below him. The far shore was dark and heavily wooded, but on the near shore, a small pavilion seemed to glow in the afternoon light. The posts and railings were a golden, blinding white, while the wooden shingles were new enough to gleam like bronze. Something about the building's placement at the very edge of the lake struck him as odd, as if perspective had become skewed in that one spot. A little ways past the pavilion, grass and scrub grew wild and a weathered dock stretched out into the lake. It was deserted save for a lone folding chair.

Castiel instinctively headed towards the dock, but before he could decipher the logic behind the impulse, he caught a hint of motion within the shadows of the pavilion.

His eyes narrowed, and again he saw movement and the suggestion of a human form leisurely pacing in the darkness.

Whoever or whatever it was could well be a threat, but was also a likely source of answers to a number of questions.

 

Castiel wasn't sure he truly wanted those answers, but he set off downhill all the same. There was no path, but the grass was neatly clipped and the footing was even.

A gaunt figure detached itself from the shadows inside the pavilion and stepped down to the ground to greet Castiel. The black of his suit merged with the shadows behind him, and his ring glowed the same stark white as the pavilion, identifying him even before his face was visible.

Castiel slowed to a halt as so many of his questions were answered at once. "Death."

Death stood straight as always, his hands folded atop the head of his cane. "Castiel." He smiled a tight little smile. "I did warn you that I was destined to swat you, didn't I?"

Castiel tried to meet Death's gaze square on, equal to equal, but his eyes kept sliding to the gaunt hollow of Death's cheek and the corner of that tight little smile. He felt his own vessel's face grow hot at the memory of their recent encounter. The feeling was distant, but not distant enough.

Now that his questions had been answered, the thing that was lurking behind them began to make itself known. A thin wall, thinner than the one that had been in Sam's mind, was all that stood between Castiel and the weight of everything he had done and had not had the time to undo.

He braced himself for what he knew would be a most fitting punishment for his hubris.

Death did nothing more than look him up and down in overt disapproval. "I suppose you're waiting for congratulations for seeing the error of your ways, at the end? Having primordial beings eat their way through your very essence no doubt forced a new sense of perspective. That was a very heartfelt speech you gave Dean at the end."

"I didn't have a chance--"

"As I recall, you _did_. Several chances, in fact."

"--to redeem myself as I said I would," Castiel finished. This time, he was able to meet Death's gaze. The tight smile shifted somewhat wrywards as one eyebrow arched.

"Ah, yes. To redeem yourself..." Death repeated quietly, and he seemed to be waiting for Castiel to add something else to that. When he was greeted with confused silence, Death shrugged and turned to go back into the pavilion.

"So what happens now?" Castiel asked. He felt the barrier between him and the weight of all he had done ripple suggestively, and he could imagine Death reaching out with his cane and bursting it with a gentle poke.

Death paused, one foot resting on the threshold. "What happens now is that you come join me in here. I have a table set for us--this _is_ an occasion, after all." He stepped inside, chuckling softly. "It's not every day that I get to reap God."

He made the title sound like an insult. Castiel supposed it was deserved, under the circumstances. Even so, his vessel's face prickled with embarrassment.

Castiel didn't follow right away, instead casting a quick glance at the dock. The chair was still there, but there was no other sign of life. A question tried to form itself, but he squashed it down viciously. The answer might undo him more than the collapse of his own wall.

Castiel looked around himself again, noting the intangible barrier between outside and inside, the position of the sun, the color of the leaves. The nature of this place began to make itself clear.

He squared his shoulders and followed Death inside. He noted that the that while the crossbeams above him were painted the same white as the outside, the ceiling had been painted a bright sky blue as if to blur the difference between outside an in. There was a table at the rear of the pavilion, in the one place where sunlight slanted through shadow. A third person sat there, but the glare off the lake behind them made it impossible for Castiel to see who it might have been. Behind the table, the railings gave way directly onto the water: fully half the pavilion had been built up on pilings and hung out over the lake.

Of course.

"I believe I understand," he said after he had crossed the threshold into the pavilion. That crossing felt more significant than was entirely comfortable, and the connection between him, his vessel, and his grace seemed to grow even thinner.

"Do you, now?" Death drawled.

"Yes." They were both on land and on water. They were inside and outside at the same time. They were caught between afternoon and evening, summer and fall, wild and controlled, warm and cold. "This is a liminal space. I suppose that is... appropriate."

Everything here was _between_ , and he was apparently suspended between life and death. For the moment, anyhow.

He started to ask what would happen next, but before he could, a laugh came from the person at the table. The laugh was harsh and mocking, and yet at the same time it was kind and gentle. It struck his ear one way one second, the other way the next.

Castiel looked over sharply, startled. The woman at the table turned slightly raised a hand to her chin, and the motion turned her gold armlet to flame in the dying light.

"'Liminal space?' Really?" She stood up slowly and sinuously. "He's just as bad as you told me."

The woman stepped from sunlight into halflight. Castiel noted the way her dress shaped itself to her curves much as he had noted the details of his surroundings. He registered them as mere fact, but this time he made an acidic mental note about how _someone_ would no doubt appreciate the sight.

Of more immediate interest to him was how the blue of the dress and the blue of the ceiling above leached into the shadows and highlights of her skin, telling him that the rich umber was merely an illusion covering more than just flesh and bone.

Not an angel. Not a demon. Not human. His grace tried to flare up in defense, but it felt too far off to do any good. What was she?

 _Very much Dean's type, for one thing_. Castiel clamped down hard on the thought and the surge of annoyance that came with it.

The woman held out her hand to him, but the back of it was raised in a way that was not conducive to the way Dean had taught him to shake hands. After a moment she dropped her hand back to her side, smiling as if she'd just won a point against him.

"Your brother truly was an exception to the rule, wasn't he?" she said, looking at him with intense consideration. "At least _he_ understood that gods should have some fun. More than some gods did, actually."

"Who are you?" Castiel demanded, even as he began to recall snippets of vile rumor. "And who do you--"

"Castiel, this is Kali," Death said. "Now if the two of you would please sit down, we have a lot--"

Castiel went for a blade that was no longer there. "A false goddess? What is _she_ doing here?" If he had been brought here for judgment, then a... a thing like her had no part in it.

The corner of Kali's mouth quirked up. She could have passed so easily for human... "I'm sorry. Am I lowering the tone of the place for you, Castiel?"

She meant to needle him. He could tell she was trying to provoke a reaction. Just like--

 _"You mean to tell me you've never been up there doing a little cloud-seeding?"_

"She is my guest. As are you."

Death did not say 'stand down,' but the meaning was unmistakable.

"I simply don't see the purpose of her being here," he told Death. Even to himself he sounded like a sullen child.

An hour ago, he would have simply erased this abomination from existence and been done with it. Now, she was smiling at him as if she knew _exactly_ what he was thinking and found it mildly amusing.

"Kali belongs here just as much as if not more than you do. Now please, sit down." Death led by example, taking the chair that faced out onto the water. Kali took her previous seat, putting her back to the sun. That left Castiel only one choice, and when he sat down his view led out along the shoreline to the dock.

"Now what--"

"Does either of you have a preference of wine?" Death asked as if this was just a simple social gathering.

Kali smiled languorously, and spoke over Castiel's next attempt at protest. "Wine sounds delightful--especially because the last time you pulled me into a mess like this, you ordered poutine. Since you're offering, I'll have a cabernet. A good, strong one."

"Excellent choice. And I don't recall you complaining about the poutine."

"I didn't have cause to complain until _later_."

"Excuse me, but--"

Death looked back over his shoulder as if he had not even registered the interruption. "Tessa, if you would?"

A dark-haired woman in a black suit slipped out from the shadow of one of the posts. Castiel knew her at once as a Reaper--one he thought he had seen before. She carried an open bottle of wine and three glasses. She placed the glasses on the table with brisk efficiency. The only break in her façade was when she flicked a split-second glance at Castiel. He saw recognition, and something else besides, but then she went about her business and poured for Kali. The wine was as dark and opaque as blood.

Tessa gave Castiel an impassive look when he refused a glass, then poured for Death. She left without a word, taking Castiel's unused glass with her into the shadows.

Kali cupped the bowl of her glass in her palm, swirling it and taking a deep sniff before taking a sip. She smiled at him. "You don't know what you're missing, Castiel."

He did not return the smile. "Actually, I do."

Castiel would not tell her about the one time he drank an entire liquor store. There had been at least a hundred bottles of that particular variety of red. Of course, he hadn't taken the time to actually _taste_ anything he drank back then.

For a moment, he was taken captive by the memory of that moment. Not just the drunkenness, but the bitter and unfillable emptiness that had prompted it and the humiliation that followed.

 _"Where the hell have you been?"_

"On a bender."

At the time, he had thought it the lowest point of his existence. His faith had been shattered, his purpose was gone. He could no longer have said how much of him was angel, and how much was something else, so he thought he would try Dean's method of coping. He had, as he had thought at the time, nothing to lose.

He remembered sitting in the wreckage of the store after the last drop of alcohol was gone, wondering what he would do next. With nothing better to do, he had spitefully flung out his wings, knocking over shelves and sending empty bottles flying against the wall. It provided a moment of dark satisfaction, but it was brief. Then he picked up an intact bottle. He remembered feeling the heft of it in his hand and then the smash when he hurled it to the ground. Another, equally brief moment of satisfaction. Eventually, there was nothing left to break and nothing left to do.

He remembered how his hands shook and how the relief struck like nausea when he finally got the call telling him where Dean and Sam were and where he needed to be.

Now, his eyes fixed on those same hands--on the tracery of tendons and veins and wrinkles that he had inherited from Jimmy Novak. He flexed those hands, noting the feel of the linen beneath his fingertips.

 _His_ fingertips, and yet right now they seemed as detached as his grace.

He turned his hands over for a moment, looking at the lines on the palm that had become disturbingly familiar.

"I'm not actually dead yet, am I?"

Death took a sip of his wine. "No."

"Not yet," Kali added, digging the needles in once again.

Death set his glass down again, and inclined his head in acknowledgement. "That comes later. At sundown, perhaps. It seems, as you said earlier, _appropriate_."

Castiel turned to look out over the lake and noted that the sun had not lowered even a fraction of a degree since he had arrived there.

Sunsets, like eclipses, clearly occurred at Death's convenience.

"Then what is the point of all _this?_ " Castiel said. He set his hands on the table again, hard enough to send the wine in Death's glass sloshing to the rim. If his death was to be delayed, then shouldn't it be to some purpose?

Death blinked as if surprised by the question, but Castiel suspected very little surprised him. "Someone who was the ruler of heaven deserves a little more than a simple shove through the door and a boot in the rear. There are protocols to be followed when this sort of thing happens."

By now, Castiel knew that to respond to anything too quickly would do him no good. If this was simply a sort of perverse cocktail hour, it would be over soon enough. If it was a test, then haste would cause him to fail. He thought over Death's words, and he felt something within his belly and deep within his grace contract painfully when the implications sunk in.

There were protocols. This had happened before.

"You've reaped God."

Castiel had long since resigned himself to his Father's absence--to His _abdication_. The silence that had resounded when he took the throne of Heaven was either apathy or acceptance, and he hadn't cared which it was. There was a void, and he had taken it upon himself to fill it.

He had never thought the void might mean something more than simple absence, or that it might still be there when he took on his Father's role.

He didn't look up. He just kept staring at the hands that were somehow _his_ and not Jimmy Novak's as the void grew and grew.

There was a snort of amusement. "Not talking about yourself, I assume? I have, and I am, and I _will_ at the end of days. You talk about it as if it's a single, defined event, Castiel. But if you need to put things in simple terms, then 'yes.' As often as has been necessary and no more than that. There are, after all, rules," he said, swirling his wine glass and watching the red rise and fall. "Or perhaps a better word might be 'rituals.'"

"Such as the one Dean used to bind you?" Castiel snapped. It wasn't smart, but he was still reeling from words that hurt and made no sense. It was easier to attack than think.

Kali actually snorted with laughter and gave him a look that might have been admiration. Death studied him for a good long while, drumming long, bony fingers on the table.

"You would do well to remember that you are my guest, Castiel, and that you are currently here on my sufferance. As I just said, there is a subtle difference between a rule and a ritual. While there are rules I must obey, this particular ritual is entirely optional on my part."

Castiel was starting to wish he had not turned down the offer of wine. At the very least, it would have been good to have something to do with his hands. Nothing made any sense. If his Father was dead, then who had restored him after his deaths? Who had placed him back in a borrowed body and made it his own?

Why? What was the point?

There had only been one God since the beginning of creation. Castiel knew this, just as he knew his own name. But what Death said implied something different, something that Castiel could not understand.

Before Castiel could say anything more, Death cocked his head as if he had just heard something that the others could not. "Ah, duty calls. I expect I shall be back soon." He stood, and bowed a quick farewell. "Castiel. Mahakali."

He vanished in what seemed like a simple shift of the light.

"So," Kali said coolly after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence. "This is awkward."

"Awkward and pointless," Castiel said. He stood up abruptly and paced over to the railing. He looked out at the water and the sharp reflection of an unmoving sun, and he wondered what would happen if he just walked out of there. Perhaps there was still some way he could keep the promise he made. "I don't understand any of this. I still don't see why I was brought here."

He heard Kali sigh behind him. "Like we said, Castiel, there are _rules_."

"Rules that apply to a dead god." A dead Father. If that was in fact what had happened. He turned and looked out toward the dock. Just as the sun held still in the sky, the chair remained stubbornly empty. "I... I see now that I took that title foolishly."

"True, but you were King of Heaven. For a little while. But yes, you are technically here on a technicality." She winced slightly. "That didn't come out exactly right."

The light off the lake stung his eyes enough to make them water, and he wondered again why he would manifest in this place in his vessel's body. Like so many other things here, it made no sense.

"Is that why _you_ are here? Because of a technicality? Because you are a 'goddess?'"

There was a bitter laugh that he knew was accompanied by a sneer and perhaps a rolling of eyes. "I was invited because I'm necessary. Do you know who I _am_ , Castiel?"

He turned to look at her. She rose from her seat and stood in a patch of sunlight and lakelight. She stretched out her arms, causing her armlet to flare again, and the rippled light from the lake gave her shadows more arms and more heads than it should have had. They seemed real in the way the shadow of his wings was _real_.

"The obvious response would be to say that you are an abomination, or a false god," he said quietly. It was easier then to look at the floor than at anything else. "I do not think I could now say either of those things without being a hypocrite."

"No. You really, _really_ can't. But that's not the only reason you despise me," she observed. She did not seem bothered, or amused. She was simply stating a fact.

"No. It is not." He looked back up at her and her warped shadow.

She sighed and let her arms fall to her side. As they fell, her shadow diminished and her shoulders drooped. "It's because of Loki, isn't it?"

"Among other things." He had heard the rumors, of course, back when he was an obedient soldier and life was so much simpler. Balthazar had repeated the rumors with great relish, but Castiel had refused to listen or believe.

It was as impossible to believe that Gabriel had fallen as it was that their Father might simply be... _gone_. But then he had seen for himself what Gabriel had become. And then Dean had told him of Gabriel's death.

Gabriel. Dead. At Lucifer's hand.

That had been as difficult to believe as those long ago rumors had been, but it was no less true for that.

"I remember when I first met him," she said, "It must have been about, oh, a thousand years or so ago."

Kali came up beside him, turning to lean back against the railing, arms crossed loosely under her breasts. She looked up into the blue of the ceiling, but it seemed as if she was seeing something else entirely. The color above them echoed in the highlights of her skin along her cheeks and collarbone.

"He showed up in my sacred city of Kolkata without warning. I challenged him, of course--I wasn't about to stand for some pale and cold-blooded interloper from a barbarian pantheon coming into _my_ lands to do as he pleased. Even with my knife to his throat he claimed he was just there to pick up some rasgulla. 'Am I to believe that a trickster god would journey all this way across mountain, steppe, and desert for the sake of a sweetmeat?' I told him. He told me he had a craving and that I looked like I could use a good helping of rasgulla myself. He made it sound unimaginably lewd, but rather sweet at the same time." She shook her head and smiled fondly. "Loki always did like his desserts. Other pleasures, too--and don't give me that look!"

"He abandoned his duties to pursue pleasures of the flesh. He was one of the greatest of us, and..." And Castiel was no longer in any position to judge. He might not have fallen into hedonism as Gabriel had, but he had fallen in other ways. "You can hardly expect me to approve."

To his surprise, Kali did not seem offended. She merely seemed wistful. "He was running away, yes. He ran, and he ran, and he ran. For a long, long time. You angels weren't the only ones he ran away from, you know." She was silent for a while, lips pressed together as she thought. "The only thing that truly surprised me when I finally saw him again after long centuries, was that in running _from_ , Loki finally found what he was running _to_."

Castiel clenched the railing and wished it felt more _present_. He wished he could feel the strength in his wings as they flared in annoyance.

"Stop calling him that."

Kali blinked at him with an air of obviously false innocence. "What? Loki? Why shouldn't I call him that? It's his name."

"No. It is _not_. Gabriel is the name he was given at the creation of the world. Given to him by our Father. Calling him something else..." Castiel wasn't sure how to explain. He closed his eyes and reached for his distant grace as he would a lifeline. "It diminishes him."

"The names the people who care for you--and if you say he cared nothing for me, I will roast you on the spot, angel or no--the names they call you have power."

His eyes snapped open, and he glowered at her.

"You know they have power. Don't you-- _Cas?_ "

It had rankled the first time Dean called him that. Rankled, and yet part of him acknowledged that Dean had the right to take such a liberty. Castiel lifted his right hand from the railing and stared at it again.

His hand. No, Jimmy Novak's hand. His grace had worn the shape of that hand when he reached into the pit to grab Dean Winchester and raise him from the fire. The shape of that hand fit perfectly to a scar on Dean's shoulder. He remembered the agony as spirit burned spirit and knew that the burning had gone both ways.

He honestly couldn't remember the second time Dean had called him 'Cas.' He wondered if he had even noticed. It seemed so natural, that he was only surprised in retrospect that Uriel had called him that, and Anna as well.

The palm of his hand felt too cold now. But he shouldn't _have_ a hand. Not now.

"What's wrong, Cas?" It did not sound as mocking as it should have.

Too many things. It was wrong that his nickname should sound as natural as it did coming from her. It was wrong that he should be kept here, waiting for the enormity of what he had done to be loosed to crash down on him and obliterate him. It was wrong that he should feel so numb, so removed from himself.

"I feel like I'm only halfway here," he said.

She smiled. "Like you said, this is a halfway place."

 _Halfway to where?_ he wondered, chilled by a fear that was as distant as his grace. He could be going nowhere good after this, could he? He had overreached.

 _"You think?"_

He closed his fist tightly enough to feel nails dig into flesh, but it felt more removed than the feel of a hand on his arm that steadied him after his fall.

 _"Come on. Let's get you out of here."_

He remembered the hope, the one fleeting moment of _joy_ (and when was the last time he had felt that?) that he had been given a chance to make everything right again.

And then it had been taken away. Just like that.

For whatever reason, Kali was not content to leave him to his thoughts.

"I heard what you said to Death. You wanted a chance to redeem yourself, didn't you?"

Yes. There was so much he would have to do to set things right with Dean, but that didn't matter. He would have done anything.

"I told Dean I would redeem myself to him. I want that more than I want anything else," he told her. "And I wasn't given a chance to put things right. I had no time."

A year. That would have sufficed. A month. Even a week. For just a second he wildly considered that he could make some sort of bargain, some sort of deal...

"I promised I would put things right with him."

She reached over to him then, resting her fingers lightly on his arm then pulling them away almost at once.

"You would have failed," she said gently.

"No! I--"

" _You would have failed._ " This time, flame sparked in her eyes. "You would have failed, and you would have been lost. Far more lost than you were when you pretended to be God. Far more lost than the others of my kind who were cut down by Lucifer. Do you know who I _am_ , Cas? Do you know who my kind truly are?"

She crossed her arms again, lightly resting her fingers on the round of her shoulders. For a moment, he thought he saw a flash of white on one hand, as if light had reflected off the stone on a ring.

"You claim to be a goddess of death." He turned that over in his mind for a moment. "I am surprised that our host hasn't decided to punish you for your presumption, but then you are also known as a goddess of destruction."

For a moment, her face reminded him very much of Sam's when Dean was being particularly obtuse. "What do you know about gods, Castiel?"

"I know that an archangel can kill you," he said.

She dropped one hand slightly, and rapped her fingernails over and over against her armlet. Her smile was very sharp. "After a fashion, yes. But not permanently. And be nice--Death will be back soon. What else?"

Castiel knew that these so-called 'gods' were no such thing. He knew that they presumed to honors they did not deserve. He knew that the archangels would one day remove them from Creation. He had always known these things.

"Our Father taught us that the angels were the pinnacle of creation--"

But that was not entirely true, was it? Only four of his brothers had ever spoken directly to their Father. Castiel had learned about the order of creation from his superiors, and why would the message have been anything but complete and unbiased?

"Rather, I should say the archangels taught us we were. And they told us that your kind had no true place in the world." Just as Lucifer had thought humans had no part in the world. "I had no reason to doubt them."

Lucifer had looked upon creation and raged, but Michael and Raphael had been equally contemptuous, only they had disguised their contempt in obedience and demand for obedience. He knew this, and yet to be made to face it, and to face everything it might mean...

"Then what are you?" he demanded.

Kali tilted her head slightly, frowning. " _What_ are we?" She shrugged, dismissing whatever thought had bothered her. " _What_ we are is not that different from you. We're less removed from the world. We are not merely observers. We may have been afforded less power than some of you, but we are not _lesser_. Some of us are older than the angels--yes, we _are_ \--and some of us are younger. Some of us are only years young. We are not demons. We are not monsters."

"Dean informed me that he witnessed your kind devouring human flesh." That news had simply confirmed what Castiel had known all along.

"While your brothers would have been content to turn humanity to ash!" she retorted. "Yes, some of us changed over time, just as some of you changed over time. But blood, in one way or another, has always been necessary. _Always_. Blood can give us power over even an archangel. And _all_ of us serve a purpose, Castiel. Even the most debased and diminished of us."

He doubted that. "What purpose is that?"

"Ooh. Such _scorn_..." She paced away, then paced back, standing to face him. "If you had truly understood what it meant to be God, you would have known. Each of us. All of us. Deeply. As well as you might know yourself. As for me, part of my purpose is to be here, for you, today. I'm not here because I _want_ to be. Again, I ask you: What am I a goddess _of_ , Castiel? What aspect of creation has been given into my care?"

Of course. Frustration was rapidly turning to anger. Death was not content simply to reap him. Castiel was to be humbled for his presumption. "You are to be my death?"

She smirked. "Only of one very small and very specific part of you. Didn't you say you had wanted to redeem yourself?"

"Yes. And you told me I would have failed."

"And you would. Because you do not understand. Do you know what it would truly take to redeem yourself?"

"No, I do not know because I was not given _time!_ " he snapped. He was nearly nose to nose with her, not giving a damn about what Dean had told him about 'personal space.' "There was no time for me to learn what I had to do to put things right with him!"

Kali stood her ground, but this time, flames did not spark in her eyes. There was only a terrible pity that he could not turn away from.

"You poor, deluded child..." she said, and something in her words rang against a memory he could not place. "Do you even hear what you're telling yourself?"

Castiel stood silent, not letting his gaze waver.

"Why do you want to put things right with Dean Winchester?"

"Because he is my friend," Castiel said without thought. 'Friend' was merely a shadow of what he wanted to say.

Castiel turned away, again focusing on that empty chair out on the dock.

"What would that mean, to put things right?"

It was such a simple question. And yet he could not answer.

He could have rebuilt the wall in Sam's mind. Or, he could try, and hope he didn't cause any more damage.

He could have helped fight the Leviathans. An angel's strength had to count for something.

He could listen to what Dean said. He would humble himself and do as Dean asked until Dean knew he could be trusted.

He could try to be more human.

He could...

He could see himself failing. He could see how that last look of mixed hope and doubt would turn more and more to doubt and finally to disgust.

Castiel sucked in a deep breath at the sudden spasm of pain that shook both flesh and grace.

"Do you even know what you are trying to atone _for_ , Castiel?"

Hubris. Deception. Murder. Cruelty. Betrayal. Manipulation. All of these things and yet none of these things.

He saw a field of dead angels, their wing-ash blackening the grass. He saw the look of rage and disbelief on Rachel's face as she confronted him. On Anna's, as he betrayed her.

"I don't even know where to start." His voice was a harsh whisper. Even before the Leviathans killed him, he had never had a chance. He looked at his hands again. He unfurled his wings. Neither seemed like his anymore. "I don't know how... I don't know who..."

"Who _are_ you, Castiel?"

He didn't know anymore.

"Let me tell you _who_ I am," Kali said, "even if only in part. I am death, and I am destruction. In this place, in this role, I am the death of something very specific. I destroy with only one goal in mind."

Castiel faced her once more. "You said that you would only kill one part of me. What part is that?"

"It would be easiest if I showed you."

He would not have described her expression as a smile.

"So, you're expecting me to trust you?"

He could tell that she was pondering the right thing to say. She looked away, and there was something to the curve of her mouth that made him wonder if she had thought of mentioning his brother.

"It's your choice, Castiel. In the end, everything that happened was your choice. This is no different."

He thought. He thought some more. And he made a choice.

"Then fulfill your purpose," he said. He stood tall, ready for whatever would happen.

Kali let her hands fall back to her sides. She gently closed her fists, then opened them again. She turned her palms towards Castiel and they were filled with flame. "Are you sure?"

He was not. This was an abasement, a humiliation, but perhaps it had to be.

Death may have brought her here, but he still did not trust Kali, or what she was. Yet, Gabriel had cared for her, and had put her safety above his own.

And Gabriel had given his life to save Dean and Sam.

 _"I will redeem myself to you."_ So very often, death was a part of redemption. He should have known that.

"Yes," he said.

She lifted her hands.

The flames washed over him, but they did not burn. Instead they shocked with their cold as the wall came down and all his illusions, all the lies he had told himself, died and fell away into ash.

He saw everything. All of it.

Everything he was.

Everything he had done.

Millions of years of history, and yet he saw how the heart of it was contained in three scant years.

The moment when he knew him _self_ , when illusory hand touched illusory shoulder and the shock of truly touching another had jarred something into awareness.

All the choices he had made since then, further and further defining that _self_. The knowledge of that other self that had helped shape his own.

He saw himself, falling into cruelty as he tried to become the father that he had missed. He saw himself watching from a distance, telling himself that Dean was better off without him, and he without Dean.

Illusion was gone, and yet the flame still burned. It burned bright.

It burned him with grief and an agony that was far greater than any of the tortures used to break his will and render him back into an obedient soldier. The pain outstripped anything the Leviathans had done.

And yet...

The flames did not consume. They did not undo.

The pain was in the clarity of what he saw.

He saw _himself_. And then he was. The flames vanished.

Castiel opened his eyes.

"Well?" Kali asked. "Is it still you?"

"I..." He cleared his throat and reached out with his grace with one thought. "I am..."

He couldn't put it into words.

"I see now why you were necessary," he said after a moment, and then he met Kali's gaze. "I thank you."

"Did you two children behave yourselves while I was gone?" Death was back in his seat as if he had never left. He sighed. "I suppose that was a stupid question. Let me rephrase that: Did you manage to accomplish anything?"

Kali and Castiel exchanged glances that were not quite guilty.

"Fine, fine. _Don't_ let me in on the joke," Death grumbled.

Castiel took a breath and grasped the back of his chair. It felt solid and he savored the feeling of smooth wood against his skin. His wings were a very real and very comforting bulwark behind him. He was solidly rooted in grace and swaddled in flesh. He was _there_. All of him.

Whatever that meant.

"I believe that perhaps we did."

Kali neither confirmed nor denied. She simply waited.

"We had a discussion about... identity. I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I realized that I have not been myself in recent months."

Death scoffed. "That's putting it succinctly. I would have used the term 'completely off the rails,' myself. Don't you think you should have figured that out long before now?"

"I knew that I had chosen wrongly. Otherwise I would not have prayed for a sign to confirm that I was on the right path," Castiel whispered.

"And?"

The signs had been there all along. His own disgust at himself for working with Crowley, or becoming more and more like Raphael in order to fight Raphael. Betraying Rachel. Being betrayed by Balthazar.

And then, Dean.

 _"I am telling you, Cas--don't do this!"_

So many signs. So many. Dean had all but shouted the answer in his face, but in the end, Castiel had remade God in his own image--blind, cruel, and ultimately clueless. And he had to die before he could see that.

"At the end--"

"Yes. I was there, remember?" Death said.

Of course he was. "I made a promise, at the end. One I would very much like to keep. I told Dean I would redeem myself to him."

"Just to him?" Death asked, and Castiel wondered just how privy he had been to everything that had just happened.

That was what Castiel had promised--that he would redeem himself to Dean. But there was something else there, as well. A presupposition that was true for all that it was not voiced.

"I took on the role of God," Castiel said with a wry smile. "I suppose that means I need to redeem myself to... myself."

"Indeed." Death, again.

Castiel looked out along the shoreline, and at the dock and its empty chair. "Perhaps there is a way for Dean to know that I'm still going to try. No matter what."

Kali looked at him pointedly. "After everything you did, are you saying you expect a _reward?_ "

"No. I would like to think that I... no. I expect nothing of the sort." If you expected a reward, it wasn't truly redemption, was it? "In the past day, I have come to find that I may have been mistaken. About many things."

Death nodded, slowly. Both he and Kali seemed to be waiting for something more.

"I understand now that my choices--" Castiel paused. They were choices, for all that he told himself and had told Dean over and over again that he had no choice. As things turned out, not only could angels lie, they could lie quite effectively to themselves. "My choices have led to..."

"A power vacuum in Heaven? The near extinction of your race? The release of creatures who had been confined for good reason? A recent unpleasant cluttering of my schedule?"

Yes. So much loss, so much destruction, so much chaos. It was too much to be undone, there was too much to be put right. And he was not God. There was so little he could do, and yet so much. So very much, not that he fully understood that yet.

"They led to a betrayal," he said at last. "A betrayal of everything I _am_."

 _I am._ A name. _The_ name. He had laid claim to the title of God, but he had not understood the simple and incomprehensible and terrifying truth of that name.

In a much smaller voice, Castiel said, "And yet... I'm not sure I really know what that means."

There were so many possible labels. None of them was adequate on its own.

He remembered a lost, damaged soul who fought hard for false freedom even as Castiel fought to raise him from perdition.

He remembered a smile, a laugh, the memory of a night he had expected might be his last.

 _"I haven't laughed like that in years."_

In his own awkward, fumbling way, Dean had fought to rescue Castiel from a different kind of perdition.

He remembered a moment that may have been his first glimmer of what _choice_ actually meant, when Lilith had Sam at her mercy and he had to explain to Dean why he was not allowed to help. Castiel remembered the fierce flicker of joy when he saw that Dean understood what he was not allowed to say outright.

He remembered trying to explain free will to his brothers and sisters and wondering if he truly understood it himself.

He remembered the way Dean had barely acknowledged his presence as he and Bobby prepared that final ritual, but he also remembered the way a touch lingered as Dean helped him to his feet at the end.

"Or maybe it would be better to say that I'm not sure I could explain it." He paused. "In words."

Death closed his eyes and nodded, smiling with satisfaction.

Castiel felt as if he had passed some sort of test.

"If it's not too late, I think I will choose to take you up on your earlier offer."

"I was hoping you would," Death said.

Rather than call Tessa again, Death simply handed Castiel his own half-full glass. It felt right that it should be this way.

It also felt right when Kali picked up her drink and poured the last swallow of wine (dark as blood, as always-necessary blood) into Castiel's glass.

Whatever happened next was now entirely in his own hands.

Some rituals involved sigils. Incantations. Potions. Some were unbelievably complex, requiring perfect alignment of stars and planets, and days of preparation.

This one was nothing more than raising a glass to his lips and drinking the bitter red down to the dregs as the last few instants of his life played out.

There were no explosions, earthquakes, or gouts of flame. What happened was far quieter and far more devastating.

Castiel stood there and felt it all. Layer of layer after taste revealed itself as the last drops of wine vanished from his tongue. Kali's flame had stripped away the illusion of what he was and what he had done. Grace and flesh, fear and hope, love and loss, good and evil.

Now, he simply accepted it all as he accepted the wine. As he accepted his death. As he accepted who he was.

He was himself. And in making a promise to Dean, he had in truth made a promise to that very self.

It would probably take a very long time to figure out what that meant.

"What next?" he asked. He knew somehow that there would be a next.

"You'll figure it out," Death said, all but waving the question aside. "You know what you need to do."

Castiel nodded. It was a good answer. He _would_ figure it out. And he did know what he needed to do.

"Kali, if you wouldn't mind seeing our guest out..." Death stood, fussing slightly to set his jacket and straighten the creases in his trousers. "This has been fun, but I _do_ have duties to attend to."

Castiel cleared his throat. "There is one thing that has been bothering me."

"Only one?" Death said. "I'm starting to wonder if you were paying any attention at _all_."

"Who are you, really?"

Death raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

"You are bound by rules... and yet you find ways to subvert them. You have the power to reap God, but in that case who set the rules that you are required to obey?"

Kali smiled as if she were keeping a particularly good secret. Death maintained a look of studied indifference.

"Dean shackled you with a simplistic ritual. One that he came by far too easily," Castiel pointed out.

Death said nothing.

"There are rules you cannot break, and yet you didn't think twice before bending the cosmos to alter the course of the moon."

Castiel had been falling apart, breaking down, and he felt the shift in the cosmos even as he heard Sam's prayer. At the time, he had thanked his Father for that one last mercy without even thinking about it.

"If you wish to get technical about it, it wasn't _me_. It might have been..." Death cocked his head to the side as he thought. "Tsukuyomi. Yes. I think that's who it was."

"I thought it was Chandra," Kali said.

Death shrugged it aside as unimportant. "Now if you'll pardon me, I have a rather full agenda for today."

He must have seen Castiel's expression when Tessa stepped back out from between the shadows.

"Oh, don't worry. Neither of the Winchesters is on today's agenda," Death said. "Or on any agenda for the foreseeable future, might I add. Untidy pair, those two. Shouldn't have been born... Should have been reaped multiple times... Somehow, they always seem to slip past the bureaucracy in one way or another."

"Shameful," Castiel observed, careful to keep any inflection from his voice.

Death _hmphed_. "I may have been mistaken about your having a sense of humor. But yes, it does seem shameful that those two are unbound by certain _rules._ "

Kali smirked, but Tessa looked as if she had swallowed a bit of unripe lemon.

Death simply studied Castiel for a moment longer. "Or perhaps 'shameful' isn't the word I'm looking for."

 _Useful_ , Castiel thought, but he knew better than to say it out loud.

"Now I do have work to do, and unlike certain other people who have slipped through my grasp repeatedly, I _am_ required to play by certain rules."

 _"You must understand why I can't intercede,"_ Castiel had told Dean once upon a time. He had obeyed the rules and yet he had arranged for their subversion. He once again felt the thrill and fear of making his first real _choice_.

"I think I understand," Castiel said, and he suspected his expression looked much like Dean's had back then.

"Farewell," Death said, and the way he said it made it sound like two words rather than one:

 _Fare well._

Castiel would take it as the blessing it was intended to be.

Death and Tessa slipped away between the shadows. Kali rested a hand on Castiel's shoulder. It was almost uncomfortably warm, but he did not pull away.

"C'mon Cas," she said. "Let's go."

"Yes." He was ready.

They headed outside. The sun had remained perfectly still during their time in the pavilion, but now Castiel sensed it moving incrementally horizonwards once more. Night was falling. This last day was almost over. He had no idea what the next one would bring.

There was no stated agreement as to where they were going, but they both turned as one to head along the shoreline towards the dock. The grass became taller and the ground rougher. Castiel nearly lost his footing twice, and Kali had to hike her skirt to her knees to keep it from snagging as they walked.

"Kali..."

"That's the first time you've addressed me by name today," she pointed out.

Castiel simply nodded in acknowledgment. "Who are you, really?"

"Who are _you,_ Cas?" she retorted, but then she laughed without mockery. "No, that's a fair question. I've been contemplating that for a _very_ long time. And the answer's not simple. It's _never_ simple."

They had reached the dock. The sun now made a path of rippling amber that extended across the water to the dock, and the clouds were turning from fire red to char grey. The sky to the east was almost growing dark.

"I see that now. Did... my brother ever understand that?"

Kali started to shake her head, then took a deep breath and stared straight out across the water at the sun. She gazed into it unblinking as it sunk another degree. "I was going to say that he only made it most of the way there, but I think at the end, he truly did." She was quiet for a little while longer, then finally said: "I miss him, you know."

Castiel almost said 'I do, too,' but all he had truly missed was the _idea_ of the herald archangel. That was not who Gabriel--no matter what name he used--truly _was._

"I wish I had had the chance to know him," he said at last. He thought for a moment. "Or that I might have had the chance to do so through you."

The names given by those who cared for you--those you cared for--defined you as much as any other name. He could not separate Castiel from Cas any more than he could now separate grace from flesh or wings from heart.

He wished Dean could know that, and with that wish he felt a surge of fear for Dean that had nothing to do with the Leviathans.

Kali turned away for a moment. "Do you know what to do next?" she asked gruffly.

Castiel said nothing. He simply walked out onto the dock. He paused for a moment, tilting his head back and letting the last of the sunlight soak into skin that was as much a part of him as his grace. The chill of the breeze running through his hair, through his wings, was electric, and he could feel how the whole world was poised in this sunlit moment, anticipatory and yet at peace. He wanted to hold on to it forever, and yet it called him to move forward, move forward...

Kali followed him out onto the dock, her footsteps light scuffs on the boards in counterpoint to the solid beats of his own. The water was not quite still, but smooth enough to hold the golden reflections of the trees surrounding the lake. He took it all in, every bit of it, but it did not overwhelm him like the Purgatory souls did.

There was no one part he could separate out from any other--the smells of the mud and the dying leaves were the same as the amber sunlight and the rippling water. The cool air was the insect-song was the dying light and the end of the day and the end of the dock. He could truly see it now. Truly sense it.

The chair he had seen earlier still sat empty at the end of the dock. A fishing pole lay on the boards beside it. Castiel rested his hand on the back of the chair, fingertips brushing the rough plastic weave of the chair's webbing.

Kali drew up alongside him so he could just see her out of the corner of his eye. The blue of her dress, the blue shadows under her skin, stood out in this golden moment and yet were part of it.

"I recognize this place," he said, and heard the gentle sorrow in his own voice.

"You should," Kali said, wryly amused as ever. "It came from you, after all. I can't tell if it's a peaceful moment, or a defining moment, though."

"It's both," he said. "And it wasn't mine to start with. But I see that no longer matters."

He had come here once, in another life. It was the one truly peaceful memory in Dean's life and somehow, Castiel had found his way into that safe, secure place to deliver a warning.

He had never before stopped to think how easy it had been to find that place. At the time, he had been too frantic. He was running out of time and he was trying not to think of the consequences that awaited him for acting counter to his superiors' wishes.

It was something he had _chosen_ to do, but it had felt more like necessity at the time. And just as importantly, it was something _he_ had done, not that he understood that just then.

Castiel clutched the back of the chair. The absence of the man who should have been sitting there became the chill of falling night.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I hope you know that. Somehow."

So many choices, not all of them good, and not all of them for the good of the man who had driven him to find _himself_. Moment after moment, word after word, and Castiel could no more separate them out from each other than he could all the parts that made up his self or that made up this dying autumn day.

He knew that even though he-- _Castiel, Cas,_ and all that meant--was an individual, there were others he could never be truly separated from, not if he wished remain himself.

The fact that Dean was not actually sitting in that chair didn't make this any less true. Absence was not the same as separation.

Perhaps one day he would understand it well enough to explain it.

And Death had not said that he would never see Dean again. Only that he wouldn't simply be handed a reward after all he had done. Castiel looked out at the lake. It was nearly dark, but some light still rippled.

Redemption might not come with reward, but it didn't come without hope.

"Are you ready?" Kali asked. She was both infinitely terrifying and infinitely kind, but that was to be expected: it was part of who and what she was.

Castiel stood at the very end of the dock now, the tips of his shoes sticking out over the edge of the last board.

"I would be lying if I said 'yes,'" he told her.

"I can give you a push if you'd like," she drawled. He could imagine the wicked sparkle in her eye, and he wondered just how much of this moment Death was seeing.

He took a deep breath. "That won't be necessary."

Castiel stepped forwards. He felt Kali's hand touch light and warm between his shoulders, but it wasn't a push as much as it was a farewell--a blessing.

He fell.

As he hit the water he thought he felt a distant echo from another reality.

The waters closed over his head, and along with the darkness came the assurance that he knew exactly who he was.

It was too much to put into words, but when he saw a light flicker into the darkness, he swam towards it without hesitation. He held on tight to the knowledge of whom he was, and the part of that which drove him towards the light and whatever lay beyond:

He was someone who had a promise to keep.


End file.
